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Who Is This Hornswoggler?

Andrew Wheeler is a Vassar alum, class of 1990. He spent 16 years as a bookclub editor (mostly for the Science Fiction Book Club), and then moved into marketing. He marketed books and related products to accountants for Wiley for eight years, and now works for Thomson Reuters as Senior Marketer for Corporate Counsel. He was a judge for the 2005 World Fantasy Awards and the 2008 Eisner Awards. He also reviewed a book a day for a year twice. He lives with The Wife and two mostly tame sons (Thing One, born 1998; and Thing Two, born 2000) at an unspecified location in suburban New Jersey. He has been known to drive a minivan, and nearly all of his writings are best read in a tone of bemused sarcasm. Antick Musings’s manifesto is here. All opinions expressed here are entirely and purely those of Andrew Wheeler, and no one else.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Consumerist, which already delights in smacking Comcast whenever it can -- and why shouldn't they? -- has been digging into a supposed list of "VIPs" that Comcast keeps in the DC area this week. The latest entry is particularly amusing, for the Comcast quote at the end.

Comcast does not and has not offered special service, perks or free
upgrades to lawmakers or public officials. Comcast does not and has not
operated a dedicated VIP phone number or Web site in any market
including the Beltway region.

Note that this, like most denials of the type, does not actually deny what Consumerist was asking about: that Comcast kept up lists of VIPs, prioritized their communications, and went out of their way to make those particular customers happy.

Comcast instead says they don't have a separate phone number or website -- which they don't need, since they can detect incoming phone numbers -- and that they don't offer "special" things to those people. "Special" is a weasel word; if Comcast has ever offered a service, perk, or free upgrade to anyone not on the VIP list -- and I'm sure they do, now and again -- then routinely doing so for VIPs is not "special." And thus they refute Bishop Berkeley.

There's a fine art to denying B when you're accused of A, and Comcast is clearly a master at it.